A Navy helicopter squadron has been sporting a patch that says “Houthi Hunting Club Red Sea 2023-2024,” with an image of the Tusken Raiders from ‘Star Wars.’ The patch was first spotted in an official Department of Defense photo that the military has since pulled. Tusken Raiders are better known – in and out of universe — as “sand people.” The patch shows two Tusken Raiders, one wielding a gaffi stick, inside a crosshair.
The patch was spotted on a Defense Visual Information Distribution Service or DVIDS post about members of Helicopter Maritime Squadron (HSM)-74 visiting Naval Air Station Pensacola on Monday, Oct. 28. The images were posted to DVIDS that day. As of Friday, Nov. 1 that post has been taken down by DVIDS. The Navy and wider military has not publicly said why the images were posted only to be deleted.
“A close-up view of Lt. Kyle Festa’s uniform patch, which commemorates his deployment with Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 74 embarked aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) in the Red Sea, captured during a demonstration onboard Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, on Oct. 28, 2024,” the caption for the since-deleted post reads. “The patch signifies the squadron’s operational achievements and heritage.”
Operation and unit patches are common in the military. Many are authorized, such as the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne)’s patch depicting a vertical sword piercing two lightning bolts. Units or even members of certain units often make and wear informal patches. That same Army PSYOPS unit has a famous informal patch with a dancing ghost on it, a nod to the “ghost in the machine.” Many of the informal ones can be privately commissioned, either just off base or even ordered online.
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As for the “Houthi Hunting Club” patch work on Lt. Festa’s uniform, it is not clear how widespread it is among HSM-74 or other units that served on the Eisenhower. The unit has been back in the United States after the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower returned from the Middle East in the summer. It’s also unclear how it signifies the unit’s heritage, as the DVIDS caption says, given that the patch only mentions the deployment and only shows the Tusken Raiders. The patches are available online still, although it is not clear if this was the source of the patches worn by at least one member of HSM-74.
The Tusken Raiders first appeared in the original ‘Star Wars’ film in 1977, portrayed as a cross between Middle Eastern desert nomads and the Western genre’s trope of Native Americans menacing homesteaders, like Luke Skywalker is depicted on Tatooine. The Tatooine scenes were filmed in the Tunisian desert. The term “sand people” is said with derision in those movies.
The Houthi group, a religious and Yemeni nationalist movement backed by Iran, controls much of Yemen in the aftermath of the Yemeni Civil War. The group, whose territory includes major cities including the capital of Sana’a, pledged to disrupt commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in the wake of the start of the Israeli war in Gaza. American forces have spent more than a year shooting down drones and missiles fired by the group, or destroying them before they can launch.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of two Navy aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the Middle East after the Israeli war in Gaza started. The carrier and its aircraft took part in multiple missions to intercept missiles and drones, operations with partner nations that involved several airstrikes on major cities in Yemen. The exact death toll of those strikes are unknown; the independent watchdog group Airwars reported on multiple instances of civilian casualties from alleged American and British airstrikes in February 2024.
This isn’t the first Star Wars-related patch to come out of the fight around Yemen. Some crew and visitors on the USS Eisenhower (whose commander Capt. Christopher Hill has made his love for Star Wars clear in social media posts) were spotted with “Red Sea Attack of the Drones War” patches, in the style and font of the ‘Star Wars’ title cards. That included Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, who posted a photo with herself wearing the patch.
HSM-74 took part in several operations during the nine-month deployment, including fights with Houthi boats and evacuation missions to rescue crews stuck on damaged commercial ships. The squadron also flew during seven American airstrike operations on Yemen.